Engaged laity play integral role in global Church

I am currently co-editing a book of essays by theologians from around the nation exploring the impact and related challenges regarding “Co-Workers in the Vineyard of the Lord.” This document, published by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2005, explored the role of Lay Ecclesial Ministry in a North American context. I was delighted to learn in recent days that the bishops will be taking up a vote at their next plenary gathering in November to discern whether to move forward with the first steps of creating a “successor” text.

We know that the Church in our country, while an expression of an international and intergenerational community of the faithful, manifests a very unique local and concrete expression of the faith. Like all other such expressions, ours has strengths and weaknesses. But one of the most recognizable contributions of our ecclesial reality to global Catholicism is undoubtedly a theologically literate, dynamic and engaged laity. Of course, this leads to a life of faith that must always be more than mere monotony, following of rules, or longing for familiar cultural touchstones from the past. A practice anchored merely on any or all of these – instead of the Life, Death, Resurrection and mission of Jesus Christ – is doomed to become unmoored in the howling social, political and technological gales of our era.

I am not claiming that “Co-Workers” is a flawless and unassailable work. However, like so many realities in our tradition, it serves not as the final word on a given theme, but instead as an important first step launching us into new conversations and explorations. (The Council of Chalcedon comes to mind as a rather exalted parallel, as a famous essay rhetorically asks whether it is, in fact, end or beginning; the ultimate conclusion to the difficult questions posed by Christ’s disciples about his personhood, or a liminal opening for 15 centuries of further reflection). “Co-Workers” remains an important resource, but the bishops and theologians specializing in ecclesiology, pastoral practice and ministry formation are all in seeming agreement that it may be time to revisit and reassess the landscape in the period approaching the quarter mark of our century.

An overarching theme for the forthcoming volume is taken from a comment Pope Francis made to one of my graduate students in a Zoom conversation through our Building Bridges Initiative with the Pontifical Commission for Latin America: “This is not an epoch of change, but a change of epochs.” Such a statement calls us to slow down and meditate on the Holy Father’s insight. He is not denying that all kinds of new things are happening in our day, as they always do among historical, embodied figures. But he’s making a larger claim that the tectonic plates of 21st century life are shifting beneath us in ways unfathomable two decades ago, when the text at hand was written. Our epoch is radically different from previous ones in all sorts of ways, including the simple fact that we share this planet with eight billion people – as recently as 1927 there were two billion, and in Jesus’s day, there were about one-tenth of one billion.

The Church of today and tomorrow must respond accordingly to the cultural and societal shifts of our day, as it has to all kinds of different yesterdays, both distant and recent. The call to missionary discipleship, service to all human beings, and proclamation of the same Gospel is ancient; the way all this is to be lived out and expressed must be re-assessed in every age. This recent news about a potential new guide-map in the dense but verdant jungle terrain of lay participation and ministry in the Church is a welcome step in that direction.

An alumnus of Camden Catholic High School, Cherry Hill, Michael M. Canaris, Ph.D., teaches at Loyola University, Chicago.

“Co-Workers in the Vineyard of the Lord”

“Co-Workers in the Vineyard of the Lord” is a resource for diocesan bishops and for all others who are responsible for guiding the development of lay ecclesial ministry in the United States. For several decades and in growing numbers, lay men and women have been undertaking a wide variety of roles in Church ministries. Many of these roles presume a significant degree of preparation, formation and professional competence. They require authorization of the hierarchy in order for the person to serve publicly in the local church. They entrust to laity responsibilities for leadership in particular areas of ministry and thereby draw certain lay persons into a close mutual collaboration with the pastoral ministry of bishops, priests and deacons.

To read “Co-Workers in the Vineyard of the Lord: A Resource for Guiding the Development of Lay Ecclesial Ministry,” visit tinyurl.com/46492kb4.

Source: USCCB